The thing is, back in the day when John Fitch designed the first steamboat, the concept of a…

The thing is, back in the day when John Fitch designed the first steamboat, the concept of a propeller was unknown. It was a stretch to go from rowing a boat using oars (a familiar territory, pun intended) to propelling a boat using a newfangled concept called propeller. Not a straightforward, linear connection. It took ingenious work to get from oars to propellers, don’t you think? Which is why engineering is such an amazing discipine — the very word engineering is based on the word genius.